What We’re Doing About Discoverability in Steam Greenlight

Submissions of all kinds have been pouring in to Steam Greenlight. As of this post, there are over 700 submissions, but that doesn’t really tell the whole story of what’s being submitted.

Two things we’ve noticed so far. First, there are a ton of legitimate submissions that people want to see. Second, there is unfortunately a significant amount of noise and clutter being submitted, either as a joke or by fans not fully understanding the purpose of Greenlight.

So, with those things in mind, today we’ve made two updates to how Greenlight works.

The first update is a $100 fee for someone to post to Steam Greenlight. The proceeds will be donated to Child’s Play[www.childsplaycharity.org]. We have no interest in making money from this, but we do need to cut down the noise in the system. (Note: Anyone who has already posted a submission to Greenlight will not have to retroactively pay for any existing submissions, but will need to do so for any future submissions.)

The second part of this update is to improve your window into Greenlight and help you find “your kind” of games. The next time you visit Steam Greenlight you’ll be shown a smaller, manageable list of games that you haven’t rated. This view is a mix of popular games and new games to Greenlight.

In the end, we’re very interested in maintaining an environment that is fair and beneficial to everyone involved, and one that fun and rewarding to join.

And, of course, we’re going to keep iterating on this system and updating as we learn more about how the community and developers want to utilize it.

Be sure to drop in on the discussions or leave a comment below and tell us what you think.

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If I already have a game in Greenlight and, let's say it eventually makes it to a point where it's been here a while and is upvoted and seems legit, maybe is even greenlit, why wouldn't I be considered a trusted source? (Re: people who submit something new have to pay)

This is a pretty lame way of handling the situation, mainly because you are charging $100 to people who, by and large, self-fund their work, simply because the people who have jobs at Steam don't want to vet new submissions. It's easy to tell what is a Mod and what is something original, don't you think? It's hard to detect copyright infrngment, which is in many gmes I've BOUGHT on Steam, some of which are produced by so-called legit companies. Sure some blr the line, but there are ways to verify that. Does the gme claim to be original? Is it by a company or indie group, not a mod group? Does it have a crowdfunding source? Does it have videos, graphic assets? Solutions in the past on other sites: DRM via content scanning, DMCA flagging / disputes system, or simply interviewing submission makers before you allow them to publish. Maybe this sort of fee is good for the likes of Desura, which doesn't charge and does have a personal relationship with the developer.

It just ruins the idea of Greenlight. Instead of implementing "noise cutting" rank algorithms and hiring moderators, you just say: "Oh, you can pay $100 and get a 0.01% chance to be noticed". GJ, you made Greenlight absolutely pointless.

i support this decision, 100 dollars is an affordable price for a game developer confident enough in his/her game. And the fact that this money goes to a fund for several charity hospitals around the world for children then why not.

wishnowski, I suggested before that Steam provides the option for a "partial pre-order", users pledging a small amount towards getting the game, which will be deducted from the price if they later buy the game.

The problem with what you're saying though is that if Greenlight is supposed to provide the advertising then it can't serve in that capacity. A developer will have to advertise the game extensively, get enough people to pledge, and only then can the developer know that there are enough people willing to pay. Which is okay, but I think that's not what Greenlight was meant to be.